


Everything I need just to break my heart

by dreams_for_spring



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dancing, F/M, Guess who shows up late, Jon and the Starks Are Not Related, Mutual Pining, Sansa is going stag to Aryas wedding, Unresolved Sexual Tension, so very very much tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-01-26 11:23:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21373345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreams_for_spring/pseuds/dreams_for_spring
Summary: “I’ve missed you Sans,” he murmurs, and she closes her eyes to commit the way he’s making her feel to memory. Tingles run up her spine, radiating out simultaneously from where his hand sits on the small of her back, and where his breath sends her skin to gooseflesh.She looks around the ballroom, glances out to make sure no one sees them. The lights have now dimmed as everyone dances the night away, blissfully unaware of everyone and anything, except the open bar.--In which Sansa and Jon have been on and off for years, and they reunite at Arya's wedding just after Sansa has been dumped by Harry Hardyng.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 49
Kudos: 244





	1. Better late than never

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Star_falcon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_falcon/gifts).
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick little ficlet that came to my mind. Jon is a little more cocky here than normal, but that’s how I like him best, and I promise if you read between the lines you can see he loves her.
> 
> Title from Arkansas by Garrett Kato

Sansa had walked into the ballroom brusquely, dressed in a black dress with a sweetheart neckline and meters of crinoline tucked underneath the fabric of the satiny skirts, a slit cut up her left thigh so high it’s dangerously close to impropriety. She’s well aware that she is a walking contradiction, care of the rather daring fashion sense of Arya Stark - who had apparently decided on the bridesmaid dresses without Sansa's input. And it’s made worse by the fact that this entire day and night she has drifted from one old friend to the next, only to find those embarrassed eyes and sideways glances everywhere she goes.

This is what it feels like to be newly single at your younger sister’s wedding, to have checked off that _plus one_ only to have to explain one week before the wedding itself that no, Harry Hardyng will not be attending, and yes, she would be coming alone. She has already had to suffer through dinner seated beside an empty charger plate with Harry's name on it; a disparaging reminder of how callously he had dumped her. 

So her best friend tonight has been Tanqueray in the form of gin and sodas – which when you’re at a wedding newly single and stuffed into a bridesmaid dress that seems now to be made solely of crinoline with the way it itches incessantly against your skin, and all your relatives keep saying “_You’ll find Mr. Right eventually_,” – is just too much, or not enough. That remains to be decided.

And that feeling only escalates when Robb’s best friend from high school enters the ballroom, because it’s Jon goddamn Snow. The second she sees him her heart skips a beat and she nearly drops her gin. She’s had a crush on him since she was 16, when he used to drive her and Robb to school in his beaten up red mustang that must have been at least two decades old. He'd been handsome then, and he looks even better now. Sansa can’t help but look him up and down, can’t help but notice how he looks older, more dangerous, endlessly alluring. His hair is longer, but it’s tied back tight so it makes him look damn near respectable. Except his beard is thick and his eyes are just as dark and wild as they’ve always been, and she remembers that there is nothing respectable about him.

He’s scanning the room now, and Sansa wants to melt into the wall, to hide behind a curtain, to become invisible. Instead, she stands frozen in place while his eyes comb over her the same as she has just done to him, the same way he had done years ago, and many times in the years in between. He must be fifty feet away but she feels the heat of his stare as he tries to maintain conversation with Robb, tries to not look at her.

Is that good, or is it bad?

She’s never been able to place him, to know whether he likes or hates her, even when he’s inside her.

Her cheeks blush and she turns away, breaking eye contact. For a second it’s a relief, but then all there is is a nagging emptiness and she is surprised to find she desires his gaze upon her once more. She chews on the straw of yet another gin and soda, thinking about what those pouty lips can do, could do, would do.

That’s when she feels it – a hand on the small of her back, warm and insistent, sitting there without permission, without provocation. The movement is so subtle and so practiced that no one could ever see it save for them. She knows instantly that it’s him, recognizes the shape of his hand on her back, where it’s sat discreetly so many times before. Except this time it’s been two years since she’s last seen him, two years since she’s last felt him, two years since she started dating Harry.

She leans back slightly into his touch and breathes deeply – newly trimmed pine trees and fresh powder snow and fur-lined leather gloves. He smells of winter - he always has - and it's desperately comforting.

His head dips down slowly until she feels his breath on her ear, hot like fire, branding her skin.

“I’ve missed you Sans,” he murmurs, and she closes her eyes to commit the way he’s making her feel to memory. Tingles run up her spine, radiating out simultaneously from where his hand sits on the small of her back, and where his breath sends her skin to gooseflesh.

She looks around the ballroom, glances out to make sure no one sees them. The lights have now dimmed as everyone dances the night away, blissfully unaware of everyone and anything, except the open bar.

“I didn’t see you at the ceremony, or at dinner,” she whispers back, avoiding reciprocation.

“I didn’t think I could make it to the wedding, I didn’t even RSVP. But Robb said it’s better late than never, so here I am.” He smiles this curious, small smile and bites his lower lip as he regards her, and for some reason it feels like he’s talking less about the wedding, and more about her.

_Better late than never. _

She mulls those words in the back of her mind as he turns her around, places her drink at the bar, and pulls her to a dark corner. He begins to dance with her, slow and languid, one hand on the curve of her waist, the other holding her own hand so carefully she wonders if he thinks she’s turned to glass since last they saw each other.

When the song changes to something more upbeat, his hand leaves hers and traces a path down her shoulders, waist, to the slit of her dress.

Her breath catches in her lungs at the feel of heat dripping through her body, pooling only inches from his fingers – those dangerous fingers that she knows are beautiful and terrible at the same time, have made her peak at least a dozen times before. She bites her lip unconsciously from the memory of it, only noticing when his eyes rise up to her lips and one eyebrow quirks up just slightly.

“What’re you thinking about?” He growls softly, fingers now scraping against the bare skin of her thigh. She closes her eyes to enjoy the feel of his skin on hers, on the tantalizing pattern he is tracing.

“That time in the back of your mustang, when you told Robb you’d drive me home from a party, and we stopped in that parking lot…”

His face morphs to a smirk and she hopes he remembers that night as well as her, because it’s the first time any man had ever given her an orgasm, and he gave her three.

His grip on her waist tightens, pulls her ever closer to him, the space between them disappears.

Sansa can feel him hard and hot against her, his suit jacket scraping against the soft satin of her dress as they sway back forth.

He leans into her, his lips only an inch from her ear. “Did Harry ever make you feel that good?”

She shakes her head no, feeling her cheeks redden from the intimacy of his question, from the effect of his voice and his words and the way her skin itches with need from him. She wonders how he knows Harry is past-tense, or how he knows about Harry at all.

“Has anyone ever made you feel that good?” He asks now, voice so low and possessive, it vibrates through her.

Her own grip around his neck and shoulders tightens, and he takes it for the affirmation that it is.

The room slides away from around them until it’s only her and him and the music, and his fingers on her bare thigh. Nothing else exists beyond that now. Songs stretch out and blend together, morphing into an endless melody. Has it been an hour, or only 15 minutes? She can’t be sure.

His hand inches beneath the fabric of the dress, ever closer to her sex. 

And she thinks to herself that this is a terrible thing to be doing at your sister’s wedding, with your brother’s best friend – but doesn’t that make it even better?

She leans in closer and presses a single kiss to the pulse point on his neck. She breathes him in deep once more, committing him to memory, because gods know when she’ll ever see him next. He always does this; comes home for a night or two before leaving again, and she never says no even though she knows she should. This thing they do has always been a glorious torture of give and take, of not enough and far too much. It's why she started dating Harry, and a quiet voice in her head always tells her it's why it never really worked with Harry either.

His fingers dip underneath the fabric of her panties, finding her slick and burning hot. He smirks that terrible self-righteous smirk of his, and she wants to slap – or kiss – it off his face.

“My room’s upstairs,” he groans, eyes never leaving hers. She leans into him, and knows that she’s going to follow him up, she knew it the moment his hand slid to the small of her back like a puzzle piece falling into place. The worst part though is that he’ll probably be gone by morning when she wakes up, be off on a plane to god knows where. But when she looks to his face and sees those dark, smouldering eyes that seem ready to engulf her whole... well somehow that seems endlessly appealing right now, and she's sure she knows exactly how this night will end.

\--


	2. It's not how long it takes, it's who's taking you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grievances are aired, secrets are told, and Jon shamelessly steals a quote from Some Like it Hot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As requested by @star_falcon a couple times, and by everyone else in the comments last chapter as well! Thank you for asking me to finish this. I'm glad I came back to it when I was in a more hopeful mood, because writing this put a smile on my face.
> 
> I'm sorry that this probably isn't what you expected, in that it's angst with a really sweet ending and no smut, which is kind of weird for me? Anyway, as always let me know what you think, good or bad! =)

As soon as the elevator doors close, it’s all desperate hands and hungry mouths. Jon’s fingers are winding their way under her dress, hiking it up so high Sansa should be embarrassed, because this is a public elevator that she is being thoroughly debauched in. His body is flush to hers, holding her hard against the walls of the elevator, sure to leave an imprint of their bodies against the floor to ceiling glass. That too should embarrass her. It doesn’t though, instead it emboldens her – the thought that at least something they do could leave a mark, could last the night.

His head falls to the crook of her shoulder, soft curls tickling her neck, comforting and heartbreaking in turn. His breath comes now in fast pants, displacing the wisps of hair that have fallen from her elaborate up-do. The way he’s leaning against her, the way he’s breathing is as though what they’re doing here is difficult, when they both know it’s the exact opposite.

This thing they do – fast and passionate and temporary – it’s second nature to them, easy as taking a step, simple as counting to ten. The hard part is after; the talking, the fighting, the awkward glances at each other as they try to quickly dress.

Knowing Jon will fly back to work tomorrow, that he’ll leave her again in a few short hours is even harder, but Sansa tries not to think about it. They’ve been here a half dozen times before, and most of the time they don’t even talk about it. Twice though they’ve ended the night sitting on the edge of the bed beside each other, and even though they had been only inches away from each other, her feet swinging in the air as they sat on the bed – it had felt like he was already gone.

She’s jarred from her thoughts by his ragged, shaky breath, as though he’s trying to hold back tears.

Except this is Jon, and Jon doesn’t cry.

He takes in another heavy breath and holds it in just a little too long. When he finally does exhale, it comes in waves, as though he’s pushing through some sort of pain. Sansa feels a sharp pang in her chest, and instinctively her hands go to his back, rubbing slowly in small circles. He nudges his head further into the space between her head and neck, and stands there, frozen in place.

“Sansa, I – I can’t do this,” he finally whispers against her skin, even though she can feel his body straining against her and knows he’s holding himself back by a thread.

She gulps hard and closes her eyes, remembering a trick her father taught her, that sometimes it’s easier to talk when you don’t have to worry about what you might see. She’s worried that this thing he can’t do is them – tonight, or maybe ever again?

Even though she has resigned herself to a fate of him never loving her, she can’t seem to deny herself him completely. Jon is dark chocolate and that fifth glass of gin. Jon is everything decadent and undeserved, that feels all the better when you indulge in him. The idea of this thing being over forever is jarring, disorienting, terrifying.

She steels herself for his answer, set jaw, hard heart. “Can’t do what?”

When she does open her eyes again, she doesn’t focus on him. Instead she looks at the numbers ticking by on the display panel. 11… 12… 13. She realizes that she has no idea where they’re going and looks to see which button he’s pressed. 34. Penthouse suite.

Her lips purse slightly as she thinks about how much Jon has changed over the years, how different he is now that he runs his own company. Gone are the ratty black t-shirts with holes in them, gone is the red mustang, gone is the boy with a mess of tangled curls and those lovely, sad eyes.

Here stands a man now; a man who gets things because they’re the best and not because he wants them, a man who wears exquisitely tailored suits. A _respectable_ man with well groomed and tied-back hair, a man whose second home is an airport lounge, a man who shows no weaknesses.

“I can’t do this,” he repeats, gesturing softly between them, “I can’t do us anymore, not like this.”

A knife twists in her gut, and she reels internally, bile crawling up her throat. “Oh,” she whispers, and she digs her fingernails into the palm of her hand to stop the flood of tears that threatens to come. It’s as though someone has cracked open her ribs and is squeezing tight around her heart, as though her veins and arteries have been filled with heavy crude oil, making every movement a labour.

It’s not that she hasn’t been expecting this for some time – they’ve been playing this game too long and one of them had to break eventually. He must have always known it wouldn’t be her, that she wasn’t strong enough. It seems a cruel joke though to do this now, here, in an elevator on the way to his room.

The elevator dings for his floor and he grits his teeth. He looks at her for a minute, indecisively. Sansa takes a deep, steadying breath and walks off the elevator into the hallway, because they’re here now and she is a glutton for punishment it seems.

This floor of the hotel is different, more richly appointed. Plush red and gold carpet, wall sconces, only a few scant doors line the corridor. _Each room must be the size of five normal ones_, she thinks disdainfully, wondering if he thought it would impress her. He should know by now that none of it does, that she’d give anything to get that red mustang back, along with those old chipped ceramic mugs he had, and the cheap coffee that was always contained within them.

Things had been simpler then.

Jon tries to pull her to him, a gentleness so unlike him. She lets him, even though she doesn’t understand why. One hand moves to each side of her face, so warm and so close she can’t breathe. It brings up memories of a mattress on the floor and a duvet without a cover and a radiator beside the bed so hot it would scald her whenever she rolled over against it. Even the pain comes with a certain joy now, as she takes stock of everything that is Jon, and the near certain knowledge that it’s all coming to an end tonight.

One of his thumbs brushes along her cheekbone slowly and she shivers. “Don’t you get it, Sans?”

_I get that you’ll be gone again by morning, _she thinks. _I get that work is more important to you than me. I get that it was me who was only ever a distraction, that you never loved me, that it’s all over now. _

She tries to ignore the way her body responds to him and pulls away. They’re alone still in the hallway, airing their grievances for the elite of King’s Landing to hear. Normally, the thought of making a scene would send her into a spiral of embarrassment. Tonight though, it makes her braver.

“Clearly, I don’t,” she retorts, voice low and with a hint of severity, sharpened teeth and claws that she has never used before on Jon.

“I stayed away when you were with Harry. Christ, did you even notice I haven’t talked to you in two years Sans? I wanted you to be happy… I thought you were happy. You deserved a chance to be like that, to have that – without me.”

“To be like what, to have what?” All she ever got from Harry were constant silent reminders that she would never be enough for him; a side glance here, a raised eyebrow there, a subtle clearing of the throat when she toed the line. Happiness is not a word she’d ever use to describe herself and Harry.

“Normal, easy, simple. You deserve a simple, happy life, and you won’t get that with me, not anymore. We don’t even live in the same city, Sans. I don’t really _live_ in any city.”

Now though, messy and complicated and hard seems far preferable to spending the rest of her life with Harry or some other man just like him; a man who will never be Jon. Hadn’t Harry told her that when he broke up with her? Hadn’t he said that she had never loved him, had never really been _there_, had never been committed and present. Hadn’t he said that he sometimes felt as though she looked right through him?

What if she did move for Jon, go with him wherever work took him? Could she give up everything for him like that? But why should it even be her who would move, couldn’t it be him? Couldn’t he step down from the company, or even just ease up on the throttle? 

That was the awful place where they always landed, each and every time. Who makes the compromise, who gives up their dream job? Neither of them can bring themselves to ask that of the other, so they never do.

And yet... she thinks of Jon's words. Normal. Easy. Simple. Harry had been all three, and she had never been more miserable. The only thing Sansa is sure of now is that nothing is perfect, nothing is easy.

“Wasn’t that your decision, Jon?” She asks quietly, avoiding eye contact.

He must see the strain on her face, must see how close she is to making a scene – more than the stilted, uncomfortable one that is already unfolding. Jon gestures for her to enter the room instead, and even though she knows she shouldn’t go, she follows him inside because at this point now she really has nothing left to lose.

Once inside, Sansa takes a minute to look around the hotel room. It’s more of a suite though; a living room welcomes them as they step inside, with two rooms on either side of it. A large stone fireplace sits unobtrusively in the corner of the living room. A fire has been lit in its hearth, logs of wood painstakingly arranged to look effortless. She wonders if it’s ever been used as anything more than a decoration, if this suite has ever seen anything more than businessmen sweeping in and out, and perhaps a celebrity or two.

_But no love resides here,_ she thinks. No one ever sits around here and watches the fire slowly consume those logs and turn them to ash. No one ever sits here drinking tea or hot cocoa and telling stories while gazing into the flames, mesmerized by the very thing that is so entrenched in our own humanity, in our livelihood. No, there’s no warmth to be found here. Sansa wonders how long Jon has lived like this, alone and detached from all the things that make life worth living.

Jon collapses on the couch in the living room, wiping his hands across his face in exasperation.

“If I’m telling the truth Sans, I didn’t want to come. I wasn’t going to come, because I couldn’t handle seeing you with that twat – Harry whatever the fuck his last name is. But Robb called me last week and told me that you guys broke up. Even then I wasn’t going to come, I thought I was too late… but he said better late than never, and it made me think how hard it would be if I _never _saw you again. And fuck Sansa, just the idea of that hurts so much it makes me want to die.”

Sansa chews at the inside of her cheek – a terrible habit that she never seems to have grown out of – and sits down on the couch beside him. The thought of never seeing Jon again leaves her feeling the same way, like when she fell from her bike as a child and all the air was painfully kicked from her lungs.

“But now… now that I’m here, I don’t know what I was thinking,” He continues. She tries to take a deep breath and that hurts even more, as though her chest has been stitched back up too tight and can’t fit everything inside anymore. “You don’t really want me, you never have. I’m just a temporary distraction… isn’t that what you said to me once?”

She winces at his harsh words, filled with guilt that she’d ever uttered them. Somehow it seems fitting that he should be saying them now all these years later, when they better fit herself than him.

“I was 19 when I said that, Jon. I was just trying to say what you wanted to hear, be what you wanted me to be. I never thought you wanted more than just something quick, something uncomplicated.”

Jon looks at her incredulously, and from less than a foot away she can count each and every new crease and wrinkle on his face. Laugh lines, worry lines, crow’s feet, and eyes that look so very tired. Every part of her body itches to take his face in her hands, to feel the roughness of his beard and kiss each new addition to his lovely face. These changes have only made him more handsome, the bright eyes and hubris of his youth are stripped away, leaving only a sort of weary hunger. It’s almost entrancing.

“I only ever wanted you Sans, that and for you to finally be happy is all I’ve ever wanted.”

She lets out an empty laugh. “If you wanted me to be happy, you’d either end this terrible cycle or let me go. We can’t keep doing this, I can’t keep doing this,” she gestures between them, “this is killing me.”

“I can’t do this anymore either,” he breathes, and his eyes are soft and glassy now, as though he’s about to cry. She has to remind herself once more that this Jon Snow doesn’t cry, he doesn’t even show weakness, or at least he hasn’t for years.

“What exactly was your plan here tonight then, Jon? Why did you ask me up here?”

He falters. “I don’t know, I just – I wanted – I needed to see you again. I feel like I’m torturing both of us though. Should I just stop Sans? Say the word and I’ll leave you alone, I’ll never bother you again.”

With those words he tears his eyes from hers and stands. He paces towards the fire, looking at it instead of her. Sansa watches his body hunch over as his arms lean against the mantle, as his raised arms pull the suit jacket up and she can see the outline of his body better. He’s always been all lean muscle, angular hips and hard stomach, strength hiding just under an unassuming surface.

Now that he’s moved further away, she finds she misses his warmth, misses those warm eyes on her, and it’s a reminder that after tonight she’ll never see them again. Not after this. It tears at her heart once more, gooseflesh prickles its way over her skin as a shiver runs through her.

_Better late than never_, she thinks, knowing she has nothing left to lose.

“Ask me to move to Last Hearth,” She says finally, after a few minutes of silence. “Ask me to leave King’s Landing for you.”

He turns away from the fireplace and looks back at her with a raised eyebrow. “You know I can’t do that Sans.”

“Why not?”

“It wouldn’t be fair. Not for you. I can’t ask you to sacrifice your life here.”

“None of this is fair Jon. It isn’t fair that I was dumped one week before my younger sister’s wedding. It isn’t fair that you are here. It isn’t fair that we’re having this conversation now.”

“What do you want then, Sans?”

She swallows hard, builds up the courage, knowing what his answer will be. But it’s been so long, too long, and she can’t do this anymore. “I told you what I want,” she whispers, almost imperceptibly.

Jon walks slowly back to her, soft steps on even softer carpet never making a sound. He’s almost graceful in the way he moves, he always has been. It’s another thing about him that she loves, though she can’t ever utter the words aloud.

He falls to his knees in front of her, resting his head on her knees. The movement is so intimate, so reverential that it takes her aback. He kneels there against her for awhile, until her knees feel numb – yet she can’t bring herself to move him. This closeness feels like a balm for the pain she feels inside, a temporary treatment for something incurable.

“I can’t just give up the company,” He mumbles finally, words muffled through the fabric of her dress. “I can’t give up everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve given up.”

“I’m not asking you to,” She replies with a sharp inhale, burning her lungs once more. “I’m just asking if you could – if you’re even capable of stepping back just a little to make time for me. No one needs to work as much as you do.”

She looks down to him; to those eyes that are black as charcoal in the dim light, to his salt-stained face, streaks that shine ever so slightly against the firelight, so minute that she almost misses it.

Suddenly, the hotel suite is so large it feels almost hollow. Echoes bounce off a cavernous ceiling, light casts off and is absorbed by shadow. _This isn’t a hotel room_, she thinks, _it’s a tomb_. It’s a testament to all the things gained by power and success, and all the things left behind.

She feels tears well up in her own eyes as she looks down at the man holding onto her knees as if she’s an island and he’s a man stranded at sea. Or is she the siren, sending his ship to dash apart in the shallow reef?

Is she ruining this man, this picture of success? The man who was a boy who had nothing. The man who was a boy that had been discounted and overlooked. No one dared do that now. No wonder he couldn’t give any of it up; when you’ve known the bottom, the fear of backsliding is stronger than anything else.

“I think I could,” he says finally, voice choked and strained. “I could do it. I could step back, I could make time.”

She thinks of his first apartment, so small it only had three rooms. She thinks of meeting him at the laundromat and eating ice cream from the corner store together. She thinks of early mornings and catching her lip on the jagged crack of his old, broken mugs, and the way he’d apologize and kiss it better afterwards.

“_I’ll make it better, I’ll be better”_, he had said to her with eyes full of fire and determination. She wishes she had known then how much his own aspirations would take over his life, she wishes she had told him he was perfect the way he was while she had the chance.

“And I don’t think you can,” she replies sadly.

His hands clench into the fabric of the couch on either side of her, boxing her in. His breath is shallow and rapid against her thighs. Why does it have to be so hot? Her fingers itch to run through his curls once more, the small of her back aches for his steady hand, the way it presses her down into silky bed sheets when he takes her from behind. Even now, her body is hungry for the ache she’d feel between her thighs for a day afterwards.

His head falls lower into her lap, so close to where he used to – but no, that’s always been the problem hasn’t it? When the sex is _that_ good it tricks you, makes you think you don’t need anything else. But sex isn’t everything. It’s the glue, but it’s not the parts. It’s the mortar, but it’s not the bricks.

She feels his jaw set, watches his head tilt up. “How do I convince you? Do you want me to step down as CEO? Do you want me to move to King’s Landing?”

She shakes her head sadly. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

A hollow rattle of laughter shakes through his body, reverberating in her. “Back at the beginning then.” He runs his hands through his hair roughly, forgetting about the tie and leaving strands of hair hanging wildly around his face.

“No,” she says softly, “The beginning was the first time you kissed me, even when you knew you shouldn’t. We should have known better.”

“You wanted me to though, didn’t you?” He asks, lifting his head from her lap, leaning back onto his knees on the carpet.

She sighs because it’s true. She’s not sure right now though that if she could go back to that moment, she’d make the same decision. Self-preservation makes a person wish for desperate things. “I was 18 years old, I didn’t know what I wanted.”

Her words are daggers, honed and sharp. She watches them hit him, watches the pain in his face, watches it harden with determination.

“Bullshit. I knew I loved you when I was eighteen Sans. I knew I wanted you, and I haven’t forgotten it a single day since then. You can tell me that you didn’t want it, but you can’t blame it on your age.”

“You loved me?” In all these years, all these encounters, he’s never said that word once before. It’s part of why she’s been so sure that this was destined for failure, had never hoped for anything more than what they had. “Then why Last Hearth? Why leave me and move so far away? Why your own company and 100-hour work weeks and only seeing me once a year?”

“I wanted to be more than a temporary distraction for you,” he grinds out, and she wishes with all her heart she’d never said those words all those years ago. She never would have if she would have known the effect they’d have on him. “I was never going to be that here, I was never going to be enough for you otherwise.”

Sansa can feel tears welling in her eyes and tries to blink them away. “You were always more than a temporary distraction Jon. I loved you too. I think I’ve loved you since I was 16 and you used to drive me home from school in that old red mustang. The first time I saw you, I knew no one else would ever be enough for me.” She pauses and bites at her lip.

“You were everything, all at once, and every day since. Every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, even every Easter my heart would skip when Robb would come home and walk through Mum and Dad’s door, because I’d hope you’d be there. That feeling, that hope, that urgency – I’ve never felt it for anyone else.”

He’s silent for a minute and looks surprised by her admission. “So what now?” He asks finally, voice wavering and unsure.

“We break the cycle,” she says quietly, and the fear in his eyes catches her off guard. He doesn’t seem to realize how much this all changes everything.

“I’m not asking you to quit your job or move… Just – just cancel your flight tomorrow. That’s it, and nothing more. I want to sit on the floor and eat cheap Chinese takeaway and drink even cheaper red wine like we used to. I want to read our fortunes from inside the cookies, and I wish I could wear one of your ratty old shirts.” He lets out a quiet snort of amusement, and Sansa looks over to see him beaming, eyes almost twinkling in the flickering light from the fire. “I want to watch _Some Like It Hot_, and have you recite all the best lines like you used to. Do you even remember any of the words anymore?”

Jon’s face breaks into an even wider smile, and he briefly bites at his lower lip to contain himself. “You don’t want me, Sugar. I’m a liar and a phony. A saxophone player. One of those no-goodniks you keep running away from.”

Sansa returns his smile in kind and feels the pain in her heart begin to subside. “I know, every time,” she replies almost ruefully.

Jon stands up then, ignoring his irrevocably wrinkled suit. He walks to his bedroom and she can hear him rummaging around for a couple minutes. When he returns, there is a wolfish grin on his face as he throws a piece of black clothing her way. She catches it and unfolds it to find it’s one of his old shirts, full of holes and threadbare. She clutches onto it as though it’s a treasure, because it is to her.

“I know you think I’ve changed, I know you think I’m an asshole or a jerk – and I probably am – but no more than I used to be anyway.”

She laughs and lifts the shirt to her face. The cotton is soft from years of wear and it smells like Jon, like home.

He reaches for his cell phone and dials a number. “Hey Sam, you know how I’m supposed to be checking out tomorrow? Could you extend my stay please? Oh, and I have a flight tomorrow morning, could you cancel that?” He nods his head a couple times. “Just tell them I have something more important to do. Thanks, Sam.” He ends the call and turns his cellphone off.

He looks back to her, smiling. “So, what next?”

“First, you tell me you love me again. Then we find a late-night bodega that sells cheap wine, and a Chinese restaurant of questionable reputation.”

He laughs, and it’s almost as though the worry lines are dissolving from his face, as though she’s lifted a weight from him. 

"I love you, Sansa Stark."

"I love you too, Jon Snow." He walks closer to her as she says the words, and she can feel her heart beating out of her chest. 

"And after the Chinese food, then what happens?" 

“We take it one day at a time, figure it out as we go along,” she breathes, unable to speak any louder with him this close, looking at her like _that._ “If we both love each other, then everything else is just details, isn’t it?”

He smiles and pulls her into him with strong arms, warm and comforting. He places a soft kiss to the top of her forehead. “You’re right… you’re always right,” he murmurs softly.

She places her hands on each side of his face and brings it to hers, kissing him softly on the lips. It’s a small and gentle thing, careful movements that show a sort of veneration that he returns with a kiss of his own. One warm hand moves to the small of her back sending heat through her body, while the other rests on the back of her neck, pulling her in ever closer.

Her head falls to the crook of his neck, and she nuzzles into the soft skin there. She breathes him in and same as ever he smells of winter; like red wind chapped cheeks and white-knuckle snowstorms, like coming home, putting on your thickest wool socks and curling up in front of a fire with someone you love.

\--------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> p.s. Yes pretty woman is one of my favourite movies, and yes I borrowed one of the underlying themes of it for here lol

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi to me on tumblr [here!](https://sonderlust45.tumblr.com/)


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